The paper aims to analyze poverty issues in rural households of India sampled purposively from the perspective of per capita Monthly Consumption Expenditure. In addition, the decomposition of poverty across social group affiliation and economic status adds another flavor to this study. The study concentrates on one of the backward areas of West Bengal, the district of Purulia, a resource-poor district with a distinct presence of scheduled social group population. The candidate villages were selected purposively keeping in mind the aspects of physical isolation and socio-economic stagnancy. Quantitative tools like Stepwise Multiple Regression and Decomposition analysis by FGT indices were instrumental in estimating the relative strengths of the factors affecting poverty. Besides, the study has simultaneously added the life history approach to integrate the QUAN-QUAL methods with an aim to produce a more complete picture. The critical findings include that the scheduled social groups, especially tribes, and daily wage casual laborers followed by agricultural laborers, were identified as the most vulnerable to poverty indicators in their respective population segments.
AgarwalB (1994) A Field of One’s Own: Gender and Land Rights in South Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2.
AnandI (2016) Dalit emancipation and the land question. Economic and Political Weekly51(47): 12–14.
3.
AnandSSegalP (2008) What do we know about global income inequality?Journal of Economic Literature46(11): 57–94.
4.
AyalnehBHagedornKKorfB (2008) Analysis of poverty and its covariates among smallholder farmers in eastern Hararghe highlands of Ethiopia. Quarterly Journal of International Agriculture44(2005), No. 2, DLG-Verlag Frankfurt.
5.
BasuK (2006) Globalization, poverty and inequality: What is the relationship? What can be done?World Development34(8): 1361–1373.
6.
BaylyS (1999) Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age (The New Cambridge History of India). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
BigstenAKebedeBShimelisA, et al. (2003) Growth and poverty reduction in Ethiopia: Evidence from households panel surveys. World Development31(1): 87–106.
9.
BirdKMcKayAShinyekwaI (2007) Isolation and poverty: The relationship between spatially differentiated access to goods and services and poverty. A paper prepared for the international workshop on understanding and addressing spatial poverty traps: An international workshop, Spier Estate, Stellenbosch, South Africa. Hosted by the Chronic Poverty Research Centre and the Overseas Development Institute, 29 March 2007. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228366712
10.
BorooahVKDubeyAIyerS (2007) The effectiveness of jobs reservation: Caste, religion and economic status in India. Development and Change38(3): 423–445.
11.
BremanJ (1990) Even dogs are better off: The ongoing battle between capital and labour in the cane fields of Gujarat. The Journal of Peasant Studies17: 546–608.
12.
BremanJ (1993) Beyond Patronage and Exploitation. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
DattGMahajanA (2016) Indian Economy. 66th rev ed. New Delhi: S. Chand and Company Ltd.
16.
DavisP (2006) Poverty in Time: Exploring Poverty Dynamics from Life History Interviews in Bangladesh. Working Paper 69. Manchester: Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC).
17.
DavisP (2009) Poverty in time: Exploring poverty dynamics from life history interviews in Bangladesh. In: AddisonTHulmeDKanburR (eds) Poverty Dynamics: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.154–182.
18.
DavisPBaulchB (2009) Parallel Realities: Exploring Poverty Dynamics using mixed methods in rural Bangladesh. Working Paper no. 142. BA2 7AY United Kingdom: Chronic Poverty Research Centre, Department of Economics and International Development University of Bath.
19.
DesaiIP (1984) Should caste be the basis for recognising backwardness?Economic and Political Weekly19(28): 1106–1116.
20.
DeshingkarP (2010) Migration, Remote Rural Areas and Chronic Poverty in India. ODI Working Paper 323, CPRC Working Paper 163. London, UK: Chronic Poverty Research Centre, Overseas Development Institute.
21.
DeshingkarPAndersonE (2004) People on the move: new policy challenges for increasingly mobile populations. No. 92. Natural Resource Perspectives. Department for International Development. ODI.
22.
FosterJGreerJThorbeckeE (1984) A class of decomposable poverty measures. Econometrica52: 761–776.
Government of India (2007a) Planning commission poverty estimates for 2004–05. Press Release. Press Information Bureau.
27.
Government of India (2007b) Level and pattern of consumer expenditure, 2004–05: National sample survey organization 61st round. Report No. 508. New Delhi: Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, Government of India.
28.
Government of West Bengal (2004) West Bengal Human Development Report. Department of Planning and Development, Government of West Bengal.
29.
HondaiS (2005) Profile of Poverty and Probability of Being Poor in Rural Indonesia. International Centre for Study of East Asian Development, Working Paper Series, Vol. 2005–16.
30.
IDRC (2004) Prospectus for the Rural Poverty and Environment Program Initiative for 2005–2010. Ottawa: International Development Research Centre.
31.
JefferyC (2001) A fist is stronger than five fingers: Caste and dominance in rural North India. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers25: 1–30.
32.
KrishnajiN (1984) Family-size, levels of living and differential mortality in rural India: Some paradoxes. Economic and Political Weekly19: 248–258.
33.
KumarS (2008) Strategic transformation in lower caste labour in Western Uttar Pradesh. In: Seventh international conference of the Association of Indian Labour Historians, Noida.
34.
LiHZouH (1998) Income inequality is not harmful for growth: Theory and evidence. Review of Development Economics2(3): 318–334.
35.
McKayALawsonD (2003) Assessing the extent and nature of chronic poverty in low income countries: Issues and evidence. World Development31(3): 425–439.
36.
McDowellCde HaanA (1997) Migration and Sustainable Livelihoods: A Critical Review of the Literature. IDS Working Paper 65. Brighton: IDS.
MendelsohnOViczianyM (1998) The Untouchables: Subordination, Poverty and the State in Modern India. New York: Cambridge University Press.
39.
MeyerBDSullivanJX (2003) Measuring the well-being of the poor using income and consumption. Journal of Human Resources38: 1180–1220.
40.
MeyerBDSullivanJX (2011) Further results on measuring the well-being of the poor using income and consumption. Canadian Journal of Economics44: 52–87.
41.
MeyerBDSullivanJX (2012) Winning the war: Poverty from the great society to the great recession. Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Fall, pp.133–183.
42.
NSSO (2004–2005) India—Household consumer expenditure, NSS 61st round, Reference ID: DDI-IND-MOSPI-NSSO-61Rnd-Sch1-July 2004-June 2005. National Sample Survey Office, Govt. of India, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
43.
OgwumikeFO (2001) Appraisal of poverty and poverty reduction strategies in Nigeria. CBN Economic and Financial Review39(4): 45–71.
44.
PaniniM (1996) The political economy of caste. In: SrinivasM (ed.) Caste: Its Twentieth Century Avatar. New Delhi: Penguin.
45.
RahmanHMManprasertS (2006) Landlessness and its impact on economic development: A case study on Bangladesh. Journal of Social Sciences2(2): 54–60.
46.
RayJSenguptaA (2012) Poverty in tribal dominated economy: Dimensions and proximate determinants. MPRA Paper No. 46458. Available at: http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/46458/
47.
ShahGManderHThoratS, et al. (2006) Untouchability in Rural India. New Delhi: Sage.
48.
SenA (1976) Poverty: An ordinal approach to measurement. Econometrica44(2): 219–231.
49.
ShahAM (1996) The judicial and the sociological view of the other backward classes. In: SrinivasMN (ed.) Caste, Its Twentieth Century Avatar. New Delhi: Viking.
50.
SheteM (2010) Magnitude and determinants of rural poverty in Zeghe Peninsula, Ethiopia. Journal of Poverty14(3): 308–328.
51.
SundaramKTendulkarSD (2003) Poverty has declined in the 1990s: A resolution of comparability problems in NSS consumer expenditure. Economic and Political WeeklyXXXVIII(4): 327–337.
52.
ThoratSK (1993) Technological Change and Regional Differentiation. New Delhi: Khama Publishers.
53.
TilakJBG (1996) How free is ‘free’ primary education in India?Economic and Political Weekly31(5&6, 3&10): 275–282, 355–366.
54.
WoolardIKlasenS (2005) Determinants of income mobility and household poverty dynamics in South Africa. The Journal of Development Studies41: 865–897.
55.
World Bank (2008) Poverty in Brief. Washington, DC: World Bank.
56.
World Bank (2011) Gender Equality and Development. Washington, DC: World Bank.
57.
World Bank Group (2003) World Development Report 2003: Sustainable Development in a Dynamic World - Transforming Institutions, Growth, and Quality of Life. A copublication of the World Bank and Oxford University Press.
